Opening Up

This week we had a wall removed that will open up the kitchen and the living room. Hubby also continued to removed the drywall that needed to be removed before new drywall could replace it. So, now we have a completely empty kitchen minus the left wall of the pantry, which was helping to support the roof. Hubby fixed that today so that we could take out the rest of that wall. We're saving that for family that's coming into town who want to take part in some demo. Can't say I blame them. ;-) Now our kitchen is a blank canvas.




Today we went and had an appointment with the cabinet company we're going to have do our cabinets. Before we went there, we had in our minds the kind of kitchen we wanted, which included white cabinets, wood floors, and slate-colored countertops. Kind of a blend between a modern and traditional look. But the cabinet company didn't have the bright white cabinets that we were looking for (bummer), but they did have these beautiful wood cabinets that had a distressed look in rustic mocha (love). I immediately was willing to change the theme of our kitchen around these cabinets. They have an inverted beveled edge, so hardware is not required if we don't want it and would help save us money. So, in a matter of minutes the theme for our kitchen went from modern to rustic. It will be similar to this picture with slightly lighter wood floors and dark counter tops:

(buzzle.com)

Finally, what's keeping me excited and dreaming at night, the 3-D picture (courtesy of Wilson Lumber) of how our final kitchen will be layed out:



Wanna come have a chat with me at the bar? =)

M-O-L-D is a 4-Letter Word

This past weekend my parents came up and helped us with the house. Hubby was still working on clearing out the kitchen so that we could put in new cabinets. Originally, we weren't considering new cabinets but rather just repaint the base and doors. However, I am so glad we're getting new cabinets because the water damage caused more mold than we originally thought.







However, the fun part of the kitchen gut is demo! My mom and I got to take out the tile backsplash along the wall. We each had a hammer and chisel and, with some finesse, pried off the tile pieces. I'm sure we each got out some stress in the process.

New Layers

This weekend we had two main projects: remove the kitchen floor and paint! Both involve showing new layers. The entire kitchen and most of the dining room floors were taken off using an air hammer and chisel. My husband and brother-in-law worked on it all weekend (minus a couple hour break to go to the circus). The previous floors were glue-down engineered with tile inset.







The master bedroom was painted a seal gray, a major improvement from the eye-gauging red that was there before. My mother-in-law and father-in-law did the majority of the painting here and most of the rooms this weekend.





The first bedroom was painted a color called soft mint green. I was concerned of how bright it would be (and it is bright), but this color is meant to compliment my white bedroom set with purple bed covers and curtains later on.




My big project of the weekend was painting the outer squares in the mudroom which is the same color as our living room (a close resemblance to a "brown bag" color), the top has already been painted, too (swiss coffee). Also, the hallways was painted with swiss coffee (top) and brown bag (bottom).

Starting Over

A large portion of our remodeling of the house will involve simply fixing a lot of the problems that are already present. First thing is to address the water damage in the kitchen that is also connected to the laundry room. We've started to take up the wood floors and take out the sheet rock in the laundry room. Once we got in there, we realized that there was water damage underneath the cabinets. So, new cabinets may be in our future.

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First Week: Essentials

After we closed on Monday, we got busy organizing and making appointments with vendors just to bring the house up to par.

On Tuesday, we had the carpets cleaned, which I was worried about because there were several heavy stains. However, Stanley Steemer came through, cleaned our carpets, and made them look almost new.




I consider it a HUGE blessing that the day of our inspection on the house it was pouring rain. Because of the rain, we were able to see what areas of the house were leaking. The entire roof will eventually need to be replaced within the next 1-5 years, but for now we're making the essential repairs that are needed. One of the largest areas that needed work was the area around the chimney. The wood beneath the existing shingles was completely rotted and new shingles needed to be put down.

Roof Before:




Roof After:





And finally for the first week, we had the HVAC unit serviced to put out heat above 55 deg F! Luckily, only one part needed to be replaced on the entire unit which was a relief. To replace an entire HVAC unit would have put a lot of our renovations on hold.

So far, all of our repairs have come either at budget or under. Hopefully, things will continue to go this smoothly.

Closing

We officially closed on the house! It wasn't as long and grueling as I thought it would be. I think signing all the initial paperwork for the loan application took longer.

The atmosphere in the attorney's office was extremely laid back. The attorney, our realtor, our loan guy, my husband, and me were cracking jokes, talking about football, and discussing the politics of the current housing situation. All the while, the attorney just kept shuffling papers our way to sign and initial. Hard to believe that one of the biggest, most stressful decisions in our life was being made in such a delightful atmosphere.

It was refreshingly different from trying to buy the house some 4 months ago. When we made our first offer on the house, we kind of low-balled our offer expecting a compromise in the middle. However, we were outbid by another seller, this was in September 2009. In October, the house came back on the market, and the seller contacted our realtor to let us know. The seller sent a memo letting us know they were informing us and 2 other interested buyers about the house coming back on the market. So, that time we offered almost full asking price, but the seller countered at full price (we were somewhat expecting that with there being competition) but they also counter-offered to another buyer. For some reason, they accepted the other buyers offer (for all we know they flipped a coin). I was crushed!

Then, before Thanksgiving of 2009, the house came back on the market at $6,000 less than the original price. We had our realtor contact the selling realtor to let them know we were still interested but wanted to know what happened with the other offer. Apparently, live termites were found in the crawl space section of the house. There was no evident damage to the house and the seller treated the property for the existing termites, but the other buyer backed out. So, we decided to try for offer #3. The day we put in our 3rd offer which was was above asking price, the house goes up for auction . . .

We were completely blind-sided by this! The selling agent couldn't have told us during the Thanksgiving holiday that this was going to occur, but they were performing this whole process in first gear anyways. A week after we put in our 3rd offer, we put in an online bid for the house at 95% of the listing price because the auction house would tack on 5% premium fee. Three days after we put in our bid, we got the news . . . they accepted our offer! I was elated, but I also knew there was a lot of work to be done before closing: start our loan application, get an inspection, and also get ready for Christmas. But we got it all done, somehow . . .

Then, in a quarter of the time it took to get our offer accepted, we were signing the papers to close on our house, our project house, our home, the place where we'll raise our kids, play with our current pets, build a life. And it all was surrounded by a conversation about how the Vikings blew the game, but this football-loving southern gal wouldn't have it any other way.

First Pics

Here's our initial pictures of when we first fell in love with our house. It's obviously a diamond in the rough, but it's ours!

We originally saw the house in September 2009, and 3 offers and one auction bid later . . . we finally have it. My husband has been such a Mr. Fix-It since he was able to hold a screwdriver. Me, however, I have no remodeling experience whatsoever! So, this should be an interesting journey. However, the house is worth enough to me to get my hands dirty.